ComfortDelGro ties up with logistics tech startup Haulio

Singapore

COMFORTDELGRO is moving into the heavy vehicle leasing business with the addition of five prime movers to its rental fleet. The five prime movers have been leased out to Haulio, a logistics tech startup that ComfortDelGro invested in through its US$100 million corporate venture capital fund.

Haulio - which has been called the Uber of the container-truck industry - aggregates jobs from customers who need to move shipping containers, and assign those jobs to drivers.

With the latest tie-up with ComfortDelGro, Haulio will now be able to offer hauliers prime movers for on-demand rental and port-related jobs such as inter-terminal transfers. Hauliers, which are companies employed to transport goods by road, will no longer need to keep spare capacities of prime movers, allowing them to save on operational costs.

ComfortDelGro group chief executive Yang Ban Seng said in a statement: "Given the similarities in vehicle fleet operations between container and passenger transportation, we believe this tie-up with Haulio will enable us to expand beyond passenger transport and into adjacent disciplines such as smart logistics."

Asked about the difference in volume and margins between the rental business for cars compared with prime movers, a ComfortDelGro spokesman declined to comment, saying it was competitive information.

Haulio founder and CEO Alvin Ea said the prime mover rental business will help support the increasing demand for inter-terminal transfers. In 2018, PSA Singapore's container throughput was 36.31 million twenty-foot equivalent units. According to Haulio's internal estimates, about 85 per cent of those containers remain within the port, Mr Ea told The Business Times.

The demand for inter-terminal and inter-port transfers is set to grow, with the Tuas Terminal mega port commencing its first phase of operations in 2021, he added. Haulio is also looking at expanding into Thailand and Indonesia, where PSA has terminals.

Mr Ea acknowledged concerns from trucking companies that Haulio would be a competitor to them. He emphasised that Haulio is not a trucking company but a tech-enabler, and they do not own the prime movers - they are leased to them.

ComfortDelGro's car rental and leasing arm has taken delivery of the first two units of prime movers, while the remaining three units will be delivered by the end of the year.

The prime mover rental service is in beta testing and is expected to go live in September. Haulio's platform has over 80 per cent of Singapore's hauliers on board with an outreach of over 2,000 trucks to date.